Community Area

Automatic Logon

by
Wayne Maples
[Published on 20 April 2004 / Last Updated on 20 April 2004]

On a dedicated special function server such as print server or application server, one might want to bypass the Logon dialog box and automatically logon to the server. Not recommended. If you want to set it on your standalone workstation at home, well thats a different matter. If you want to set this on a laptop or workstation on a network, consider the word security.

If you need to set autologon and twiddlying with registry hacks is daunting, see Autologon tips which points to freeware utility to do the work for you.

The following registry hack details the registry keys which control automatic logon:

The following registry values must not exist: LegalNoticeCaption, LegalNoticeText. These values force a person logging into a PC to acknowledge having read the notice. If these values exist, the legal notice dialog hangs until someone hits enter. Don't just null out the values. Delete them.

The value DontDisplayLastUserName determines whether the logon dialog box displays the username of the last user that logged onto the PC. The value does not exist by default. If it exists, you must set it to 0 or the value of DefaultUser will be wiped and autologon will fail.

Finally, the value RunLogonScriptSync determines whether a logon script will run synchronously or asynchronously. It should not effect this process but there have been reports that setting the value=1, that is, sychronous, is more stable.

Whether you use the Autologon utility or the registry approach, there are times when you must logon as another user or need the logon dialog to appear. Hold down the shift key until during boot until the logon dialog appears. For the control freaks, even the shift override can be blocked (also see ForceAutoLogon above) :

Featured Links

How to Prevent Security Breaches

Join Brien Posey, Microsoft MVP, for a discussion of the increasing trend of data breaches and real-life lessons learned, including recent examples such as the Anthem breach. Brien will also discuss future trends based on recent data breach investigations and address a range of topics including:

How and why do data breaches happen and which firms are more exposed?

What is the cost that data breaches hold for organizations?

What can companies do to stay protected?

The webinar includes a live Q&A session with our expert presenters to answer your top questions.

Online Survey: The Definitive State of Load Balancing and High Availability

MSExchange.org, KEMP Technologies and numerous MSFT and VMware experts worldwide would like to invite you to participate in our confidential 6 question survey on Load Balancing and High Availability. This survey takes about 6 minutes and all participants who wish can leave their email address and register to win a $50 Amazon gift certificate.

The results of this survey will be used to create a white paper on the State of Load Balancing. Everyone who registers will also get a copy of the white paper.

PowerShell Essentials (Part 7)

In this article, I'll explain how you can pass values to a PowerShell function... Read More

Tips and Tricks Using the Windows Hosts File

Here I will discuss how to access, open, and modify the Windows hosts file. I’ll give some tips and advice on making redirects, whether you want to block or filter sites or create shortcuts to certain websites... Read More